Make a Better Living Campaign

[Jack7]

In addition to reporting on what the PCs did in regards to certain key metacampaign points (majority of PCs did or didn't eliminate the undead problem in the Free City, did or didn't kill the fell necromancer controlling them, etc.) that can affect later adventures, I'd also add the ability to report other things (one set of PCs discovered that the fell necromancer was recruiting minions from a local tribe of Derro; another set of PCs took a wrong turn in their investigation and discovered a plot to murder the head of the local chandlers' guild, etc.)

As the various different plot hooks roll in from DMs reporting, the controllers of the living campaign can cull them for the most promising to be turned into additional "non-core" adventures.

I think that is a very good approach. I'd also emphasize the importance of rumor and false information and different rates of information flow. Even if you had magical or miraculous means of information flow in a fanatsy setting there'd be little chance of mass communications flow.

In other kinds of living campaigns that might not matter, in fantasy and mythological settings misinformation would be rampant, as would the uneven spread of information.

So I'd have gradations of information flow and reliability. For examples:

This is likely, or many have said this
It is rumored
It is said but not many believe
This may be, but is unlikely
There are contradictory sources on this
So and so swears (and usually they are believable)
So and so asserts (but who believes them?)
So and so the Thief believes
So and so the Paladin insists
The King of Pesh decrees
The Mayor of Smallburg declares

 

[Alphastream]

I bookmarked this thread, wanting to reply earlier... but um... I was busy working on organized play for D&DXP (hey, at least I have a good excuse!).

The major "living" campaigns we have seen from WotC and others have hardly been "living" in any sense.

The concept may be something that is too difficult to even tackle. I believe that's why the nomenclature has gone away from using the word "living" in some of the newer campaigns (Ashes of Athas, for example).

As Shawn said, the term "living" can mean various things. For AoA, I'm fairly sure we (I'm one of the admins) avoided the term because initially the campaign was going to be only at conventions. We also wanted to avoid intruding on LFR's space for various reasons. Dropping the term was a way of being honest about the campaign having limits and not being WotC's main campaign.

That said, we write it around a living framework. It isn't LG by any means (LG had armies of volunteers, active forums with LARP-style interactions, many interactives, and tons of ways for players and campaign staff to interact). But, Ashes does record what you do and we absolutely respond to what players do and make huge changes.

For example, the decision to have the True be soundly defeated (at least, so it seems... ahem) and to start Chapter 4 on a new track was based in part on how well PCs did in AOA3-3 and the read we had from players. It felt like the end of a story arc, so the True have faded into the background a bit. The heroes have also made a number of decisions that have influenced various NPCs (both good and nefarious) that will change future events (and already has in some cases). But, these things are not immediate. A player could even say they don't feel them at all.

To my knowledge, the stuff I discussed in the prior paragraph is not something anyone has attempted to tackle. Updating prior (or future) adventures based on the actions of players is a monumental, possibly Herculean task.

It is. One of the keys is that you need to write the next series of adventures often before you can have post-convention play for the previous adventures you had written. It takes 3-4 months to write several high quality adventures. In theory it could be less, but it is extremely hard to do so.

You can have trigger points in your plot, such as:
If the town is destroyed, the next adventure is in a different town.
If the town is save, the next adventure is in this town.

But those changes are less significant than saying you have an entirely different adventure (either about going after and routing the attackers or about trying to rebuild from destruction). It is very hard to react quickly and introduce significant change.

Also, players react negatively when they perceive punishment. "You lost the interactive, so in this adventure your queen is dead and you can't really get a feelgood ending." Because of that, it is hard to have "teeth" from results. It is possible, just more challenging.

One way to accomplish this would involve tabulating surveys (or something to that effect) from the end of each adventure played and somehow work the results into some sort of update on a monthly or annual basis to change the setting and past/future adventures to reflect what has been done in the "living" part of the campaign.

I think this is the most realistic way to do so. If you can have almost a parallel success track to the story track, and have it be visible and measurable that would work well. For example, the campaign revolves around a frontier town and each scenario has success/fail points, which in turn affect the growth of the town and resources available. By keeping that track separate you could still write mods in advance, with plugins based on success levels.

Alternately, the success could be based on the table, adding up each players' success points.

Both are "gamist" approaches in that they are obvious systems rather than subtle story.

 

[Loonook]

This thread by Havard: Living Campaigns

got me to thinking.


How would you improve the idea of Living Campaigns to make them better? What things would you do, or suggest, to make a better Living Campaign?

I'm not talking about improving specific Living Campaigns (though you can talk about that if you wish in context of the thread), but I mean how would you improve the very idea of Living Campaigns and how they function?

Alderac actually has a great system for handling canon and story for their Legend of the Five Rings setting based on victories of specific factions in story tournaments or kotei. If faction A falls from favor it has an effect; as does the specifics of each game. They take into account CCG tourneys, LARPs, and chosen roleplaying group data to change the story.

I believe that there should be a similar thing going on with our New Living edition. Imagine characters following Living dynamics... And the effects of each game changing the landscape of the locale. How many parties kill the Goblin Lord? Do some negotiate? Do others beguile him into an alliance against the Scorpion Bark Ogres across the Reach? There should be a few separate DM-required steps in the game:

- Creatures labeled 'Story' creatures. If parties have positive (or negative) attitudes to the Alchemist outside the Rising Sun Inn the character gains a storyline increase or decrease. Get rid of the collective Jar Jars of the campaign, and perhaps that Alchemist then comes into play in the next campaign.

- Sealed Documents. Story games have predetermined dates of play. The last weekend of the month plays the Sealed campaign. Reports are made and reporting changes the game.

- Death is (semi) Final: Yeah, I know it seems harsh, but we move the game forward. Each sealed document will contain a pre-fab party that a player may take. At the end of each season a character has the ability to come back into play (see Seasons below).

Players will also have some responsibilities:

- Numbered sheets. There's a database so that if the sheet is lost or damaged you may generate your sheet exactly. Think Myth-Weavers or similar sites on a scale that you can bring your PC from California to New York and have the exact same equipment.

- Seasons - PCs remain the same level throughout each season. When season change comes around a player may choose to 'retire' his PC or generate a new PC. There are blocks of offered items at the beginning of each season that may be chosen, or keep items from previous seasons. At the end of each season you may bring a killed PC back from the brink with the appropriate levels and changes.

- Factions - PCs may join Factions. These Factions are similar to the offered bonuses from Living campaigns, but also gain Faction Points. Each Faction who has a certain amount of successful PCs season/season gains a Level for their Faction. Each Sealed document provides an additional document for each Faction. These documents give Faction-specific goals. These goals can actually be counter-intuitive to other Factions. Each Faction can also provide for specific items and cool new tricks, and the highest Faction on the board gets to reward their players. Ever want a Rogue that gets some spell-like abilities that may be useful to his sneaking? Have him throw in with the apprentices of the School of the Unseen. Your Wizard a little weak in the HP department? Join the Royal Guardians and gain that extra 1 HP/level if they make the cut.

Just some ideas..

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Alphastream]

Alderac actually has a great system for handling canon and story for their Legend of the Five Rings setting based on victories of specific factions in story tournaments or kotei. If faction A falls from favor it has an effect; as does the specifics of each game. They take into account CCG tourneys, LARPs, and chosen roleplaying group data to change the story.

I don't know if the latest Heroes of Rokugan campaign changed things, but in previous versions they operated separately from the CCG (which does radically change story based on tourney results, clan memberships, etc.). Some of it comes down to money, such as wealthy clan members that pay for people's subscriptions so their clan accrues more points.

In Heroes of Rokugan's second campaign there was a good degree of player activity mattering, but it was comparable to Living Greyhawk and saw the same criticisms - true impact and equity. Even in the better regions players would question to what extent what they did mattered vs. was really pre-ordained. Was it pre-ordained that the Lion Clan would do what it did? Did your sacrifice really change things in that LG battle interactive, or was it just used as reasoning for something already planned? *

Equity is a big deal and hurt LG in the final years of the campaign. The new player had less of a chance to influence the campaign than the invested player that happened to live in the same town as an administrator. While I understand and I'm even ok with some of that, I think future D&D organized play has to be really fair in who can change the story. It can't be based on knowing an admin or having more money if we want the campaign to really grow.

* From my end as an admin, this can be a tough one. A player or players may do something that should have an effect, but a really serious effect may be a less interesting story than the one you already have planned. It is similar to the issue of using wandering monsters in home campaigns - is it better to have a choice of 10 random encounters you drew up quickly or spend all of that time on one cool encounter that represents a chance encounter with a creature?

 

[Janx]

Interesting thread idea.

Right now, it sounds like Living Campaigns have the same pattern MMOs have. Lots of people allegedly in the same universe, executing the same quests even, with no real impact of Group A's action on Group B's experience (barring PvP and inter-group communication).

As an software developer, here's the tools I'd look at integrating:
a full PC registration. Every PC is cataloged and "known" as to its wherabouts, inventory and accomplishments/campaign changes
adventure library where new quests are constantly randomly being generated and a group's GM checks out a quest, thus locking it from ANY other group being able to do it.
The outcome of that quest is then fed back into the system, which may generate a new follow-up quest for another group (say Group A takes it, screws it up, which changes the nature of the quest, so not Group B could undertake this NEW quest)

The core goal being, it's not realistic that everybody has run through the Saving of Princess Helpless Quest at level 1. Only 1 group gets to take that. But it's OK, because there's a million other quests just like it but different for level 1 PCs.

Right now, when a group takes a quest, it has NO impact on the rest of the world. It really doesn't matter if Group A ran the quest and succeeded or failed. That's not really "living" is it? Sillier still, the quest will respawn so the party can re-do the quest or another group can do it.

a good MMO could of course manage all of this stuff, but we're talking about PnP gaming here, so some adjustments to the idea have to be made.

It's nigh impossible for 2 groups to meet up and go PVP or anything like that. So Group A making a botch of Saving Princess Helpless means Group B can hear about how PCs X,Y and Z screwed it up, but they can't go beat up on Group A because of it. Group A's PCs are untouchable/unfindable NPCs relative to Group B's perspective.

But, the fact that Group A's actions can impact what Group B sees is an interesting concept.